An Unexpected Succession

No sooner do you start reading about how to make the most of a small garden – especially where eatables are concerned – than you hear about succession planting. The general idea is that most plants don’t take all year to grow, so why not have something else – or more of the same – ready to fill the vacated spot when harvest time arrives?

I freely confess that my organizational ability floundered at this challenge, even in theoretical form, much as a tortoise flounders when trying to do a Fosbury flop. (Something I suspect a flounder could do with ease.) I decided I’d just improvise as I went along.

So here we are in late spring, and the garden is beginning to see some succession. But not at all in the way I intended. Take the alyssum, for example.

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Behold the Pockets!

It has been suggested that the answer to “what do women want?” is “pockets in their clothes” and believe me, when I saw this waistcoat, I wanted it.

waistcoat with lots of pockets

Would anyone like to stake a guess as to the total number of pockets provided by this fine garment? A hint: there aren’t any on the back half of the waistcoat.

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Digging Up Buried Treasure

I have of late been making the closer acquaintance of my garden fork, also known as a digging fork, which is most certainly the use I have been making of it. I hatched a plot over winter to turn an overgrown section of lawnish area (presently hidden from the house by a derelict shed) into a vegetable garden.

The patch started out looking like this:

overgrown lawn with nasturtium and rundown shed
Derelict shed to the right, with detached pieces of itself leaning against it drunkenly.

Observant gardeners among you will have noted that the section or plot in question appears to be mainly growing nasturtium. Appearances can be deceptive. Under what one might call the canopy of nasturtium lurks all manner of things, most notably mint.

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